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While Artie is the author of Maus and Vladek narrates his story directly, the opening pages of the book reveal that Anja has died by suicide. Therefore, everything we learn about Anja comes secondhand. These secondhand details suggest Anja is smart and sensitive, though she struggles with bad “nerves” and depression. She survives the Holocaust thanks to other people’s kindness, Vladek’s resourcefulness, and the strength of her love for Vladek.
After Anja gives birth to Richieu, their first son, she has a “breakdown.” Vladek has already shared that Anja took pills for her “nerves,” and this breakdown continues her characterization as emotionally fragile. Vladek takes great pains to get Anja everything she needs, and she recovers completely after a stay in a sanitorium in Czechoslovakia. This breakdown and recovery show the two sides of Anja: on the one hand sensitive and full of life, and on the other, fragile and easily overwhelmed.
Anja and Vladek spend the early years of World War II evading the Nazis by hiding in bunkers, moving to different ghettos, and finding shelter with kind Poles. Ultimately, however, they are caught and sent to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Anja says multiple times throughout this period that the persecution of the Nazis is so intense that she would rather be dead or kill herself. When she says this, Vladek reminds her of their love and convinces her that she must survive so they can be together again. This appeal to Anja’s heart by the person who knows her best shows just how “heart-forward” and family-oriented Anya is, but also further highlights her fragility.
Anja’s story has two different endings. In Vladek’s telling, Anja is freed by the Russians and returns to Sosnowiec before Vladek arrives there. When he finally finds her again, after a long separation where each feared the other was dead, they embrace and live “happy, happy ever after,” according to Vladek. As we know from the book’s beginning and Artie’s comic Prisoner on the Hell Planet, however, Anja dies by suicide in 1968. The exact causes are unknowable, though menopause and Hitler both take some blame in Prisoner on the Hell Planet, especially because Vladek has burned her diaries. For Artie, the destruction of those diaries is a repetition of her death, killing her a second time. Anya is thus comes across as the most tragic character in book and represents the most heart-wrenching of Holocaust victims.
